Grissom High senior wins national recognition

Dave Praharaj entered the work he did this summer at Stanford University in the Siemens Foundation competition. HUNTSVILLE, AL - It's not many high school students who spend the summer doing scientific research at Stanford University in California.

But Dave Praharaj, a Grissom High School senior, did just that and earned a spot as a semifinalist in the 2009-2010 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology for his work. He was one of three semifinalists in Alabama, including two students from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham.

About 1,800 students submitted projects to the prestigious competition, and 300 were named as semifinalists and 90 as finalists who will go on to compete for a $100,000 scholarship.

Praharaj has a passion for research, particularly in the area of immunology. He has family members who have suffered from auto-immune diseases, and he plans to make it his life's work to help those affected by diseases such as muscular sclerosis and Huntington's disease.

Praharaj got interested in scientific research back in middle school and began searching out reading materials on his own, the dense kind of stuff aimed at fellow researchers.

"I would ask my teachers questions and try to understand it," Praharaj said recently. He has taken part in science fairs and competitions, and this past school year, he enrolled in an early start program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. There he worked with Dr. Lynn Boyd on research involving Huntington's disease.

He discovered a professor at Stanford who was doing similar work and sent him an e-mail. That led to a phone call and ultimately an invitation to come to California for the summer. "It was getting in contact and putting myself out there," Praharaj said about that e-mail. "I really didn't have too much to lose.

"Dave, of all the students I have ever taught, has had a keen interest in doing research," said Lady Emrich, a chemistry teacher at Grissom. "He has gone way out of his way to do research and seek mentors on his own."

Praharaj spent the summer in the lab, sometimes 12 hours a day, working with Ph.D. and medical students. He injected mice with small heat-shock proteins to see if mice with muscular sclerosis got better.

About halfway through the summer, Praharaj's colleagues began to encourage him to enter the Siemens competition based on the work he was doing.

Praharaj said he knew his competition in the prestigious event. He's competed against them before in places such as the International Science and Engineering Fair.

"I've met these people, and they're really quite something," he said. "Everybody shows the same passion for science. They want to make a difference in their communities and want to make a difference in the world."